Soul
by Toboe LoneWolf
Summary: Emotionless as Raven is, her soul is her greatest expression. [Oneshot]


_Summary_: Emotionless as Raven is, her soul is her greatest expression. One shot.

Toboe LoneWolf: Eh. My first TT fanfic, and wow, it's a look into Raven's character. How interesting. Well, I hope it's interesting to you all; it's a different viewpoint on Raven. It's one of those, "you never think about it, but it's there" kinda things. Keh, I'm babbling here. Read on.

_Disclaimer_: Toboe LoneWolf does not own Teen Titans. CN and DC comics do, and CN is currently being very mean about it. XD

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**Soul**

Perhaps it was Cyborg that first understood, although Starfire was the first to experience it.

Right from the beginning Raven told the team that her powers were driven by emotion, and so she had to control her own emotions in order to control her volatile powers. From then on there was a tacit understanding that Raven had to be (relatively) emotionless in order to not blow the Tower up. It was an unspoken rule: Don't Bother Raven.

What she didn't tell them outright from the start was that whenever she used her powers, she used a bit of her soul.

Starfire first…felt it, the link between Raven's powers and Raven's soul. Or rather, how tightly bound Raven's powers were to her soul. When they had switched bodies, their souls had also switched, meaning that Raven's powers were bound to Starfire's very, very…expressive…soul. Before Starfire had gained a minimum of control over Raven's powers, Starfire's exuberance meant that every time Starfire reacted, a bit of her – Starfire's – soul went into whatever poor object that was destroyed. Starfire didn't really understand what was happening, _feeling_ something outside her own body. It was as if Starfire were the car, or the telephone pole, or the mailbox for a microsecond before it blew up. Once Starfire understood, it was even stranger to consciously focus her own soul into something else. A lock. Her friends. A wire. Cyborg. Each time Starfire said Raven's mantra, Starfire was that object for a brief moment. It was…odd.

After getting their proper bodies back, it took a while for Starfire to make the connection. She had _been_ Raven. Starfire had done what Raven did every day – putting a bit of her soul into something else, and _being_ that object for that time.

Raven said it simply to Cyborg.

"When I use my powers, I have to put a little of my soul into whatever I'm moving. I become a part of it, and it becomes a part of me."

After the whole incident, Cyborg thought about that statement for a long time. He'd never thought about it that way. Every time Raven used her powers, she'd been putting a bit of her soul into it. The car. Boxes. A rock.

And then in training, when they'd work together, and Raven would teleport them. She'd been putting her soul into _them_.

Raven had teleported all of the titans sometime or another, whether it be in battle or during training. They all agreed it was strange, getting enveloped in this enormous black bird, and for a moment seeing, hearing, feeling nothing. A momentary second of almost non-existence.

Well, teleportation wasn't completely devoid of feeling. True, they could physically sense nothing – but somehow, each time they teleported via Raven, they…felt something. An emotion, like. It was slightly different each time. Sometimes it was calm, sometimes painful, and sometimes oddly…happy, the "euphoria of flight," as Starfire once called it. Raven shrugged, and said it was a side effect.

What took the titans a while to figure out was that it was Raven's _soul_ they were feeling.

For that short time, they were part of Raven's _soul_.

When the titans figured that out, one by one, it was a shock.

"Dude! You mean every time she does that—" Beast Boy waved his arms, "—she's been putting a bit of her into _me?_"

Cyborg lightly punched Beast Boy. "Yeah? So what? Saves your green skin, doesn't it?"

"That is like, way creepy man! I mean, she's been doing that all this time, and—"

This time, Cyborg punched harder. Beast Boy yelped. "Hey! What was—oh."

Beast Boy shut up when he saw Raven enter the room. One look at Raven's face and it was very clear:

Do not talk about Raven's powers. Period.

Raven dealt with that herself, thank you very much.

She was an enigma. Revealing herself willingly was rare. The titans had to learn about Raven's character from the outside, in bits and pieces. Raven never said that she had a habit of drinking tea in the morning, or that she liked facing east when she meditated, or that she actually enjoyed ice cream, but eventually the titans learned of her quirks and habits. It was in the little things, that they could draw a bigger picture of Raven.

And every time Raven used her powers on them, they grew a little closer to her. In those brief moments, they could feel Raven's soft, muted soul. She did not do it trivially. As time went by, and they grew closer together, they experienced it more often.

Beast Boy felt it the most, simply because whenever he annoyed her, the punishment usually involved Raven mentally grabbing him and throwing him someplace else. Beast Boy never knew why it was so painful flying through the air _before_ he hit something until he learned that it was Raven's Very Annoyed Soul that was hurting him.

After that, Beast Boy made an effort to not annoy Raven so much.

They learned to differentiate between Raven's hidden moods through the expression of her powers. When her aura glowed softly, in pulsing globes, that meant Raven was relatively happy that day. When her aura sparked and crackled…well, it was best to stay out of the way (Beast Boy most of all). Even if Raven's face and voice were still expressionless, they could grasp Raven's moods on how Raven's powers – her soul – expressed herself.

It was the most intimate when Raven healed them. Raven healed all of them, one time or another. Cuts, or bruises, or broken bones…each time Raven was putting a bit of her soul into them. During that time, there was a brief connection between Raven and whoever she was healing. They could feel Raven's worry, or that quiet, nurturing side of her that Raven rarely revealed.

Whenever Raven's soul touched them, they felt a tiny part of Raven. Anger. Fear. Warmth. Comfort. All of these they felt, the times when Raven used her powers on them. In the mist of battle, most often a detached coolness. Mischief. Humor. Pain. Yes, even lust, although _that_ was quickly withdrawn. A multitude of feelings and emotions, all of them hidden deep inside Raven…and yet felt through the connection to her soul. Her soul, which expressed so many emotions that Raven herself could not.

The most dramatic demonstration was when Raven unleashed her soul-self. When Raven took that stance, with narrowed white glowing eyes and gritted teeth, and let it _loose_ – an enormous black bird, suddenly expanding and unfurling its wings, screeching in defiance. When Raven fully released her soul-self, its wingspan could easily cover half of Jump City.

Robin had seen it once, and had no desire to see it again.

In the times when Raven set it loose, the titans could literally see Raven's soul. This, was Raven. _This_ raven bowed to no other master. _This_ raven was wild and protective and dangerous. _This_ raven, flying in this world, was beautiful and alluring and sweet. _This_ raven was a soul large and expansive, with feathery wings great enough to envelop the world and end it—or to cup its wings and save it. Black and dark and defiant and _free_, for once, unbound, untamed. _This_ was the true Raven.

…This was also why Raven rarely let it out, if what the villain's reactions to Raven's soul-self treatment said anything.

And so Raven's soul-self stayed hidden within, only expressed in little dosages here and there. But even though Raven never said anything, they could feel Raven's muted emotions every time Raven used her powers with them. It was a way of communicating, in an odd sort of way. She knew they knew that she couldn't talk, couldn't express outwardly – but her soul could do it for her.

It was all too easy to define Raven as secretive, aloof, hardened, and emotionless. That was how she portrayed herself. That was what she wanted. That was what was _needed_.

And yet, one by one, the titans learned that Raven was perhaps the most _open_ of them all.

A paradox, to be sure.

And yet, was not the soul one's spirit, one's essence?

And who among them regularly shared her soul, laid it out bare to the world, put her soul into her friends and enemies and inanimate objects? And that each time she did, a part of her was a part of them?

The Teen Titans were not philosophers, being "only" teenagers. They did not have long, deep pondering thoughts on what it meant to have a soul, what a soul consisted, or what connection it had to oneself. If anything, they left that in Raven's realm of thought.

All they really cared was that Raven was not the emotionless person so many thought her to be.

She did not verbalize, to be sure. She never told them, never said it flat out. But she did not need to.

Her soul did it for her.


End file.
